MRS. GRAHAM AT HOME.

As the summer advanced, extensive preparations were commenced for repairing Woodlawn, which was to be fitted up in a style suited to the luxurious taste of its rightful owner, which, as report said, was in reality Durward.  He had conceived a fancy for the place five years before, when visiting in the neighborhood, and on learning that it was for sale, he had purchased it, at the suggestion of his mother, proposing to his father that for a time, at least, he should be its nominal possessor.  What reason he had for this he hardly knew himself, unless it was that he disliked being flattered as a man of great wealth, choosing rather to be esteemed for what he really was.

And, indeed, few of his age were more generally beloved than was he.  Courteous, kind-hearted, and generous almost to a fault, he gained friends wherever he went, and it was with some reason that Mrs. Graham thought herself blessed above mothers, in the possession of such a son.  “He is so like me,” she would say, in speaking of his many virtues, when, in fact, there was scarcely anything in common between them, for nearly all of Durward’s sterling qualities were either inherited from his own father, or the result of many years’ companionship with his stepfather.  Possessed of the most exquisite taste, he exercised it in the arrangement of Woodlawn, which, under his skillful management, began in a few weeks to assume a more beautiful appearance than it had ever before worn.

Once in two weeks either Mr. Graham or Durward came out to see how matters were progressing, the latter usually accepting Mrs. Livingstone’s pressing invitation to make her house his home.  This he was the more willing to do, as it threw him into the society of ’Lena, who was fast becoming an object of absorbing interest to him.  The more he saw of her, the more was his admiration increased, and oftentimes, when joked concerning his preference for Carrie, he smiled to think how people were deceived, determining, however, to keep his own secret until such time as he should be convinced that ’Lena was all he could desire in a wife.  For her poverty and humble birth he cared nothing.  If she were poor, he was rich, and he possessed too much good sense to deem himself better than she, because the blood of a nobleman flowed in his veins.  He knew that she was highly gifted and beautiful, and could he be assured that she was equally true-hearted, he would not hesitate a moment.

But Mrs. Livingstone’s insinuation that she was a heartless coquette, troubled him, and though he could not believe it without more proof than he had yet received, he determined to wait and watch, studying her character, the while, to see if there was in her aught of evil.  In this state of affairs, it was hardly more than natural that his manner toward her should be rather more reserved than that which he assumed toward Carrie, for whom he cared nothing, and with whom he talked laughed, and rode, forgetting